Let’s talk today about meditation. Last Saturday at meditation, we discussed the way each time we meditate, the practice is unique – sometimes we feel like we can land in a deeper state and other times we feel so challenged with lots of thoughts and feelings arising.

Sometimes, we just feel like we need to practice more, do something more such as exercise or move our bodies before the meditation. Those things can be helpful. Yet, there is also something else happening that isn’t often spoken about. And even when it is, we don’t always recognize it.

My first meditation retreat was around 2003 or 2004. And many subsequent retreats in the next couple of years. I was addicted.

I loved what it gave me – the courage and strength to make tough decisions that were more aligned with who I was. The chance to feel and rest into presence and inner spaciousness. To soften my inner defensiveness and feel even the pain and disappointments I had been avoiding — more than that, when I felt that, I felt like myself instead of the hardened and defended part that kept me from feeling me.

After a few years of meditation retreat after retreat, I really started to struggle. My trauma was arising. I changed paths – different spirituality, different meditation retreat. I would be in the honeymoon again – the elation, feeling of connection. And then, I struggled.

For many years, I processed emotionally and released tears. My heart expanded. I felt elated, bliss. I loved my practices to bring me back to myself.

Yet, on another level, I bypassed. I couldn’t stay with the stringent retreat requirements and went on hikes while others meditated. Even my home meditation practice became challenging. It was 5 minutes of such discomfort!! The mind spinning. I couldn’t land.

I didn’t know I was bypassing my trauma. I didn’t know my trauma was coming to the surface every time I landed into bliss, love, stillness…any time I experienced a deeper state of Being, it also excavated my trauma.

All my friends from spiritual communities were also in the same place. It felt like a post retreat crash. Now that we were back to our regular life, we thought maybe it’s a lack of sleep. Or missing being in the space. We thought oh, this is normal. Normal to feel exhausted or blah to some extent.

Yes, it’s normal to feel that way. Something real has been stirred. Our wounds have come to the surface. Yet because we don’t recognize what’s happening, we unconsciously push them back down again.

Before we know it, we’ve lost something in us. We may even be dissociated from this loss. Sometimes it’s more obvious. Maybe we don’t feel so motivated. Or we feel depressed, like we’ve lost our purpose.

Other times it’s happening, but we aren’t conscious of it. We may even be able to sink deep into a state of Being in moments, but then the rest of the day we’re distracted or anxious or bored. It feels “normal” to us to not be connected.

Spiritual practices do not mask our wounds and traumas, they excavate them so that we can transform back to who we really are.  

People who come to work with me are really in different stages. Some who are in the beginning of their journey and learning how to navigate it in an embodied way, building skills so they can traverse this journey in a more balanced way.

Others who have been on a spiritual path for a long, long time and having to unlearn all the spiritual bypassing, and becoming more embodied. And, of course anywhere in the middle.

I’m not trying to dissuade you at all from your practices and meditation. This is the most precious – a way back to who we truly are. A way back to our humanness in a world that is far from that. A way back to our own beauty and preciousness that got covered by our wounds and traumas.

May we safely land back into our real and inner home and the richness of what’s here now – within us and in this world.

If you feel like you would like some support, I offer a free 20-minute consultation for one-on-one psychospiritual integration mentorship worldwide.

Book a Free Consultation and check out more about Psychospiritual Integration (Spiritual Growth Integration and Embodiment) on my website. 

If this article resonated, you may also find support in these reflections on spiritual awakening, embodiment, and psychospiritual integration:

• Our Deepest Trauma Isn’t What Happened to Us — on what we lose of ourselves when wounds get pushed back down
• 3 Foundational Ingredients for a Safe Spiritual Awakening Journey — on how to navigate what arises on the spiritual path in an embodied way
• The Pendulum of Awakening — on the contraction that follows every opening, and why it’s not a sign you’re failing